1) If you received the BBC’s response - Reply!

If you received yesterday’s infamous response from the BBC, use the opportunity to complain about this response. (here) You will be asked at one point, “What is your reason for contacting us on this issue again?” and then be asked to enter the case reference number. 

ideas about which issues to address:

• a collection of counterarguments for heteronormative readings
  
• examples for queerbaiting
• examples for complaints regarding different aspects of the BBC response (also if your complaint wasn’t about queerbaiting)

This sort of follow-up complaint might get your issue to “stage 2″ (= the Editorial Complaints Unit has to deal with it).

“If you are dissatisfied with your reply at this first stage, you can re-contact us in writing within 20 working days explaining why. You may be able to escalate the issue to stage 2 of the complaints process. If so, we will tell you how to do this in our second response.” (BBC)

2) If you haven’t filed a complaint yet or you didn’t address every issue - file new complaints!

a) Important: File a complaint for each single issue!

(how to file a complaint - step by step)

The BBC states: 

“Please raise only one issue in your complaint - multiple issues can cause delays and other complications in replying.” (BBC)

As seen in their response, “Sherlock” was too multi-layered as an issue and they only adressed the queerbaiting. File new complaints about everything else. P. ex.

• normalization of abuse
  
• misrepresentation of mental illness
  
• poor quality (plot holes)
• OOC behaviour of John and Sherlock
• misogynystic use of female roles as plot devices
• queercoding of villans
• etc.

If you want to address all of the six examples listed above, file six individual complaints.

b) File your complaint until January 31!

The BBC reports monthly about the complaints they receive within a month. (BBC) There are indications that almost 20,000 complaints were filed online in the first 14 days after TFP aired (certainly not all about Sherlock, though). The highest number of complaints in 2016 was in January with 25,000 complaints. So there’s a good chance we will break the record for 2017 with the impact of the Sherlock complaints. If you want to add your complaint to this statistic peak, make your complaint in the remaining days of January! - The number of complaints about Sherlock will naturally drop down in February and the following months. So do it now! 

If the complaints get mentioned in the report about January, that’s something we can asked the media later to pick up on.